Standard Deviations — 4/14/11

The root of “passion,” etymologically speaking, is pain. Anyone who’s ever been in unrequited love can probably attest to this: love, when done badly, hurts in subtle, unimaginable ways. The corollary, however, does not hold true — loving done well, and with passion, is not always composed of tender, loving caresses. Thus, the subject of this column: the role of biting, scratching, hair-pulling and spanking in the bedroom.

It’s an especially relevant topic now, as spring approaches with the speed and resolve of a bipolar glacier — it’s the time of year where pants turn tentatively into shorts, and dresses start to come out with more frequency. The advent of skin means that some care should be taken not to leave marks in visible places for the next morning (unless, naturally, you’re into that sort of thing). Basic rule-of-thumb: unless otherwise specified, breaking the skin, whether with nails or teeth, is pretty much a no. If things are trending towards HBO, a simple confirmation, like “This might leave a mark. You alright with that?” is just polite.

What is peculiar about biting, hair-pulling, scratching and spanking, though, is that as sexual acts they inhabit this no-man’s-land of sexual acts, somewhere between the comforting familiarity of lovemaking and the scary realms of ball gags and gimp masks. Often, the reactions that people have to them vary incredibly, based on both past experience and present context. Take spanking: for some, a well-placed spank in the heat of the moment is an affirmation of enthusiasm, and blindingly hot in a nerve-kindling way. For others, it just brings up unpleasant memories of one too many trips to the Headmaster’s office. (For a select few, it brings up both.) So, whenever introducing savory ingredients to an otherwise sweet dish, do listen (verbally and non-verbally) extra-well — often, whether or not someone is enjoying a dash of light pain is easily seen.

That said, this isn’t to say that you should have sex like playing hopscotch in a minefield: there is a fine line between being sensitive to your partner’s responses, and being a mood-killing wet blanket. Interrogating your partner like Barney’s Gestapo (“Is this okay? How about this? Do you mind if I do I harder? Are you sure?) is thoroughly unnecessary, and pretty much the opposite of hot. This isn’t SM — prior discussion of acts performed and a “script” need not be established, just a healthy open mind and a solid foundation of respect.

Always remember, people are not porcelain plates: they are neither fragile nor flat. That your partner may find biting to be the hottest thing since True Blood doesn’t mean they’ll also be into scratching. Then again, just because you’re terribly into whomever you happen to be hooking up with doesn’t mean that your bedroom escapades need be as tender and soulful as Oprah — which is to say, never send lovemaking to do a f*cking’s job.

There is a deeper respect in knowing your partner so well that you can succumb to the violence of passion than there is in being afraid of hurting them — it’s understanding and respecting the breadth of their resiliency, while respecting their wishes at the same time.

What is at the heart of this is safety — the more you trust the person you’re with, and the more that they allow themselves to trust you — and the more you can experiment and play. To introduce anything new into the bedroom risks rejection, and the risks only increase the more unusual the suggestion becomes. Ideally in the realm of scratching, biting, pulling hair or spanking, there is a trust being communicated — that whatever you are doing, it is a space that is safe to play in without judgment. For receivers, that’s something to respect. For givers, listening well to the response is essential. Consider passion a kind of drug — while under the influence, please f*ck responsibly.